I spent four years as Forbes' Girl Friday, which to me meant doing a little bit of everything at once. As a member of the Forbes Entrepreneurs team, I looked at booming business and startup life with a female gaze. I worked on the PowerWomen Wealth and Celebrity 100 lists, keeping my ears pricked and pen poised for current event stories--from political sex scandals to celebrity gossip to international affairs. In 2012 I helped to put two South American women on the cover of FORBES Magazine: Modern Family star Sofia Vergara (the top-earning actress on U.S. television) and Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff, who is transforming the BRIC nation into an entrepreneurial powerhouse. Prior to Forbes I was at the Philadelphia CityPaper, where I learned more than any girl ever needs to know about the city's seedier trades. I studied digital journalism at The University of The Arts.
I left Forbes in November, 2013, to pursue other interests on the West Coast.

On social networks we commonly present ourselves to the world with our best faces forward, whether it’s through photos of ourselves smiling atop Machu Pichu on Facebook or being endlessly clever on Twitter. And since we all know we’re guilty ourselves, we commonly cut each other some slack when someone’s vocabulary, say, isn’t as extensive in real life as it is online.

But all social networks are not created equal. There is one where misrepresentation is a far greater sin, where the smallest fib might cost you your career. Yep. LinkedIn. With over 150 million people leveraging the site for job hunting, networking and business connections, it’s the one place online where honesty really is the best policy, from your photo to your college to your sorority affiliation.

With that in mind I set out to look for the biggest mistakes job-seekers are making on the world’s most successful social business network. I tapped Krista Canfield for the inside scoop; corporate communications manager at LinkedIn, she spends hours finding tips and tricks to share with the media, and has found some big mistakes along the way. NextNext I got Joshua Waldman on the phone. While researching his book Job Searching with Social Media for Dummies, the social media expert spent five years toying with the site, experimenting with his own profile and those of his clients in an attempt to game the system. Last up, Nicole Williams, author of Girl on Top and, more recently, the Connection Director for LinkedIn. Together, they schooled me on the 10 biggest LinkedIn mistakes, and how they just might cost you your (next) job.

1. No photo

LinkedIn profiles with photos are viewed seven times more often than profiles with a blank box, meaning the decision to add a photo should be a no-brainer. Unfortunately, many people still chose to keep their faces off the social graph. This, agree all three experts, is a really bad call. “When there isn’t a picture, there’s an immediate element of mistrust,” says Waldman, and Williams agrees. “It’s a lot like when you’re selling a house,” she says. “If there’s no photo, it’s like ‘there must be something wrong with this property.’” Even though recruiters would never admit to hiring based on looks, she says that when they see nothing at all, they fear the worst.

2. An old photo or a glamour shot

While having a photo is important, having the wrong photo is a much more common mistake. “I see it especially in women,” says Williams. “It’s easy to choose a photo of ourselves at our best so it makes sense that a woman might use a photo of herself ten years younger.” You look great, and it might get you an interview, but when you walk in the door it can appear to employers like a deceptive bait-and-switch. Even if you’re not looking for a new job, Waldman says, it’s disconcerting to meet someone in real life that looks vastly different from their online gravatar—think of a Match.com blind date gone way wrong. Bottom line: if you’re bald in real life, you should also be bald in LinkedIn.

This isn’t a common one, the experts agree, but it can definitely be problematic. If you bluff on your education information on LinkedIn, be prepared to be outed. You have no way of knowing whether your interviewer’s little sister just to happened to graduate Gettysburg in 2004. If you lied, he will ask and she will know about it. Rule of thumb in professional social networking: it may seem like a vast network of strangers, but the world is truly much smaller than you think.

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Another mistake job seekers make when using LinkedIn is not realizing the networking site’s full potential. LinkedIn’s most valuable asset is just that – linking people together. If a job seeker knows of a few different organizations she wants to work for, she should research those organizations and use LinkedIn to find whether any of her connections or any of her connections’ connections works at those organizations. Finding a name to send a resume to or a person who might be willing to give the job seeker more insight into the organization is invaluable in a job search.

The problem of linking via people to an eventual hiring VP is this . If that person does not work out and it is know he/she came thru the stepping stone process those stones all of a sudden become pebbles then flakes and are looked upon as such . Understand the metaphor ? Combined with the article here showing how much bs there is I doubt linkedin is making many high level PLACEMENTS . I get daily who got placed in my industry and I never saw , oh it hooked up between linkedin . Never .. Have you ?

The problem of linking via people to an eventual hiring VP is this . If that person does not work out and it is known he/she came thru the stepping stone process you suggest, those stones all of a sudden become pebbles then flakes and are looked upon as such . Understand the metaphor ? Combined with the article here showing how much bs there is I doubt linkedin is making many high level PLACEMENTS . I get daily who has been placed in my industry and I never saw , “oh it hooked up between linkedin” . Never .. Have you ?

Good research. A runner-up for the list might be: 11) Do not be exhaustive in listing accomplishments at each of your current and former jobs, because the boost to your search ranking isn’t worth the risk of being perceived as long-winded and/or self-absorbed.

Linkined or any other social biz site will not take the place of a tried and true headhunter . What you have on linkedin is what I call the mentally unemployed meaning they are looking as opposed to not looking. A major difference both on the person seeking and the person hiring . It has to be confusing for hiring parties whereby they , HR Depts. were and are confused as it is when it comes to hiring or else they would be doing my job and alleviate me which is not happening . The most ridiculous part of Linkedin to me is the false Testimony. There is only one way to ck references and that is not it . It is called a 360 which encompasses a Colleague ,a subordinate , and a superior . Any questions ?

Very interesting. Point 8 and recommendations I do not agree with however, ever seen a user publish a bad one? In my opinion they are useless unles they can be validated in the context of a past employer.

Wow! Hornets nest stirred-up it seems if, if one were to “expand” comments before offering any, which I now do sans temerity. Mistake No. 12 (see other comment for No. 11) is NOT getting professional help free, widely available online or for a reasonable fee such as actually investing in you by buying Josh Waldman’s “dummies” book and avoid all this angst. His is a personally researched treatise that will amazingly stand the test of time in the face of the fact LI makes unannounced changes by the minute. Nate Kievman moderates a free Linked Strategies group on and independent of LinkedIn. As for the LinkedIn naysayers, they are easy to find. The documented success stories might not involve board chairpersons looking for work, but impressive points have shown up on job search scoreboards all over the globe. There I said my peace and I stand by it. sQs Delray Beach FL